‘Theresa May’s naked attempt to buy votes through a hotchpotch style ‘national renewal’ programme is not what we should be welcoming.’
Photograph: Isopix/REX/Shutterstock

Just when we think we have reached peak Brexit complexity, we always seem to go one better. As Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to Theresa May laying out Labour’s terms for supporting her deal made the headlines, I simultaneously got an email from a local party member decrying Labour “facilitating Brexit” and a text from a local resident saying, “Yay, this is clear and offers a soft Brexit.” Putting aside issues of where such a move leaves Labour with members and the electorate, where does this letter leave us in terms of the potential renegade Labour MPs willing to vote for May’s deal as long as there are sweeteners?

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In the absence of May being able to ensure a permanent customs union, it seems to make it more likely that Brexit bribes will be on offer, and potentially more likely that they’ll be taken up. It’s not just the political dangers of such a move that are a problem here, it’s that a politically motivated, half-baked, short-term regional investment programme will do nothing to address deep-rooted inequalities in the UK.

How much difference will a few extra million pounds make to deprived areas that were hit by deindustrialisation, and disproportionately affected by the financial crisis and then the Conservatives’ public spending cuts programme? The short answer is: not much.

Place-based inequality in the UK is big, bad and ugly. It would take seven Liverpools to get the gross value added of the City of London and Camden. Travel outside the cities and you see areas long neglected. Rather than “left behind”, years of policy oversight means these areas and the people living in them have been actively held back. The high Brexit vote in these areas shouldn’t have been the wake-up call, we should have noticed their plight far earlier. But May’s naked attempt to buy votes through a hotchpotch-style “national renewal” programme is not what we should be welcoming. On this occasion, nothing really is better than something.

Our inequalities are not just driven by geography – if they were, then the billions invested under Tony Blair’s Labour government would have solved the problem. The breadth and scale of investment needed to reverse current deprivation requires a whole new economic approach – for example, through a massive expansion in green industries, through rapid development of renewable energy, greening homes and seeding green manufacturing. Social policy would also have to change – we cannot impoverish people through benefit changes when there are no jobs for them to go into. In addition, we need a higher minimum wage because people without money cannot spend in local economies, further undermining local high streets. Importantly, we also need to keep money flowing to these areas – you can build a new hospital, but without paying for staff and for upkeep that hospital will fail.

The Conservatives have been moving in the wrong direction in all these cases – slashing subsidies for solar panels, for example, ramming through cuts to welfare spending and of course running down the NHS such that it now has a staff shortage of 100,000 people and growing.

‘What is on offer is nothing short of taking with both hands and then giving back with one.’ Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Then there is the direction of Brexit. MPs may demand that their hospitals’ PFI be paid off, but what will happen if we get to the next stage when Tories will have free rein on trade deals that could potentially further privatise the NHS? And how far will new money from May cover what is being lost for EU regional funds? For example, half of all funding for the “northern powerhouse” comes from the EU. What is on offer is nothing short of taking with both hands and then giving back with one.

Inequalities are too acute and embedded to be overturned with small bits of funding here and there (in other words, to areas with MPs who could potentially get May’s deal over the line). Growing research tells us that it is financialisation and falling trade union membership that have led to growing inequalities and a falling wage share. While the government may be trying to make friends with trade unions now, hell will freeze over before they reverse the damaging Trade Union Act.

This is not a government that is serious about tackling inequalities in this country – in fact, many in government actively want the opposite.

This week news was leaked that ministers plan to unilaterally cut tariffs on all imports to zero in the event of a no-deal Brexit – a recipe for the market to be flooded, with real consequences for British industry and jobs.

Liam Fox, Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Raab have repeatedly put their desire to “cut red tape” and privatise more sectors on record. The views of the people in charge give you a sense of what’s to come. Any Labour MPs speaking to Conservatives about regional investment or workers’ rights have forgotten a golden rule – never trust the Tories. Trade deals will have very little democratic scrutiny, and given that EU rules haven’t protected UK workers from unpaid overtime exploitation we can’t expect Tories to keep any of their promises on workers’ rights.

So my message to wavering Labour MPs is: don’t be fooled, you can’t tackle inequality in isolation. If May is unable to meet Corbyn’s criteria, and keep us close to the EU and trade deals out of Tory hands, then we have no business supporting a Brexit deal.

• Faiza Shaheen is the director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies and Labour PPC for Chingford & Woodford Green